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ASYMETRICAL DISCOURSE IN A COMPUTER-MEDIATED ENVIRONMENT
by
Michael Dennis Rushforth
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISPANIC LINGUISTICS)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 Michael Dennis Rushforth

Over the course of my studies in linguistics, I became intrigued by the impact of computer code on communication. As physical space can be used to provide communicative advantages to one party over another, so the computer code that structures a virtual communicative channel shapes discourse patterns. This dissertation is organized as a collection of three papers, each of which considers the asymmetries of discourse in a different virtual environment. ❧ The first environment is an online message board for sports fans. Its conversations follow a tree-structure format which identifies whether the author of a message is a donor to the website, a social status marker signaled by the underlying computer code. In this chapter, I investigate how the board's tree-structure influences which messages are read. I also consider what quantifiable differences in participation and readership exist between donors and non-donors. The study of the board structure demonstrates that a reply's proximity to its parent messages affects its readership, with those replies closest to the parent message receiving the highest readership. The study also finds that donors have a higher participation rate in conversations, but on average, messages posted by donors receive slightly less readership per message than those of non-donors. ❧ The second environment is in the domain of second language learning and examines students in first semester university Spanish interacting with a virtual conversation partner in Spanish. The conversations followed a format similar to in-class role play activities and were guided by prompted questions from the virtual agent. The study shows that students believe that metalinguistic feedback is necessary for a language learning activity to be useful, although there was not a consensus on the pedagogical effects of the feedback. The pilot study also indicates a preference to have feedback delivered by a separate virtual agent, rather than have the role of conversation partner and tutor be executed by the same agent. ❧ The third environment is one of virtual agents designed for tactical questioning training. This chapter looks at interactions primarily from the perspective of the authors creating interactive narratives; it examines communicative asymmetries that are inherent to authoring, as well as restrictions imposed by the specific architecture used to develop the agents. ❧ As computers become increasingly ubiquitous as a communication tool, it is important to consider how different environments are structured through computer code. These three studies contribute to the understanding of how design decisions regarding computer-mediated conversation environments affect user interactions.

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ASYMETRICAL DISCOURSE IN A COMPUTER-MEDIATED ENVIRONMENT
by
Michael Dennis Rushforth
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISPANIC LINGUISTICS)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 Michael Dennis Rushforth